Various types of manual, semi-automatic and automatic cigarette-making machines are known in which loose tobacco is compacted into a rod-like shape and transported into a hollow cigarette tube to prepare a cigarette. In many of these cigarette-making machines loose tobacco is first placed into a compacting chamber in which a reciprocating compacting member engages and compresses the loose tobacco into the rod-like shape on an injection spoon at the bottom of the compacting chamber. The compressed tobacco rod-like shape is then transported by the injection spoon which moves across the compacting chamber to carry the rod-like tobacco shape into a hollow cigarette tube positioned outside the cigarette-making machine and adjacent the chamber.
In fully manual cigarette-making machines both the compressing of the loose tobacco into a rod-like shape and the transporting of the rod-like tobacco shape into a hollow cigarette tube are performed by manually operating a crank on the machine. In typical semi-automatic cigarette-making machines, the loose tobacco in the compacting chamber is compressed manually by operating a crank to compress the loose tobacco between the leading edge of a compacting member and an injection spoon located in the compacting chamber to form the rod-like tobacco shape. Upon completion of the compressing step, typically a motor is automatically triggered to cause the injection spoon to move across the compacting chamber transporting the rod-like tobacco shape into the hollow cigarette tube. Finally, in fully automatic cigarette-making machines, both the compressing of the loose tobacco into a rod-like shape and the transporting of the rod-like tobacco shape into a hollow cigarette tube are performed by triggering one or more motors which first drive a compressing member to form a rod-like tobacco shape on an injection spoon and then drive the injection spoon (or other transporting component) to carry the rod-like tobacco shape into a hollow cigarette tube.
While it is well-recognized that commercially manufactured cigarettes come in various different lengths, semi-automatic and fully-automatic cigarette-making machines currently can only make cigarettes of a single length which generally corresponds to the length of the compacting chamber. Therefore, in order to make cigarettes of multiple lengths, different semi-automatic and fully-automatic machines specifically designed to make each desired cigarette lengths must be used. This is inconvenient, wasteful and uneconomic.
It is therefore an object of present embodiments to provide semi-automatic and fully-automatic cigarette-making machines that can make cigarettes of different lengths.